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<title>Through the Never by PatternsInTheIvy</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28884270">Through the Never</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatternsInTheIvy/pseuds/PatternsInTheIvy'>PatternsInTheIvy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Desalma (TV 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath of Possession, Angst, Gen, Harlan Ellison references because I couldn't resist the opportunity, Possession, Post episode 10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:15:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>412</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28884270</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatternsInTheIvy/pseuds/PatternsInTheIvy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Halyna wears a stolen face, mutters something in Melissa’s voice, and she looks so, so lost that Melissa almost pities her.<br/><i>Almost.</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Through the Never</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title comes, of course, from Metallica's homonym song.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Melissa has no eyes, but she sees the world in a way that she has never seen before. She’s nowhere and everywhere. Bodiless, floating. Looking down, up—<em> there is no sense of direction </em>—she sees herself walking along the road. Hears her own voice, but it speaks in a language she doesn’t comprehend. It sings a song she has never heard before. </p><p>She—her body—almost stumbles, and she prepares to feel that little rush, that sensation of falling, but it never comes. <em> Where </em> and <em> how </em> she is now there is no falling, no walking, no tasting, no smell, none of those things.</p><p>What<em> is </em> there, then?</p><p>She is. She is there, nowhere, now, and never. </p><p>The only continuum thing is her. </p><p>But what is she? She can’t tell. A person, a spirit, a soul? Melissa isn’t even sure if she believes—believed, will believe—in those things. </p><p>She can only be. </p><p>The person—she knows the name, knows the story behind the name—just keeps walking, and Melissa keeps following her.</p><p>Halyna wears a stolen face, mutters something in Melissa’s voice, and she looks so, so lost that Melissa almost pities her. </p><p>
  <em> Almost.  </em>
</p><p>What doesn’t let her truly feel anything of the sort are the last seconds she had in her body, fighting, resisting, trying, and failing. </p><p>Being disembodied did not hurt, but there are worse things than pain. Melissa also suspects that she’s about to find out if there are worse things than death. </p><p>She doesn’t know what she’s been condemned to, what sort of existence awaits her. She just wants to go back—to repossess her own body, to have flesh again, so that she can be seen—and Mom, Emily, even Maksym, will know that she’s there. </p><p>Melissa can’t part, can’t leave, can’t give up without letting them know that she’s there. </p><p>Halyna carries, conducts Melissa’s body to a place that Melissa has been to only twice. </p><p>It is the police officer who takes his cousin back home. </p><p>There are candles, cards, and bones there, inside the house. And there stands Haia Lachovicz, a victorious smile appears on her face, just as her arms shake and she reaches out and pulls Halyna into her arms. She presses her face against the hair of the girl in front of her—<em> Melissa’s </em> hair—and inhales. </p><p>If Melissa had a mouth, she would be screaming now. Haia raises her head, looking around. It seems like Melissa’s <em> not-scream </em> can be heard anyway.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thoughts?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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